El Paso City Council to look at taking Asarco smokestacks back to protect them

Engineers were climbing and dangling from ropes on the Asarco smokestacks. The two stacks, the tallest of which rises 826 feet, were built in the mid-'60s. The El Paso City Council will consider a resolution this month that would make the Asarco smokestacks city property, saving them from demolition.

The El Paso City Council is expected to consider a resolution later this month that would make the Asarco smokestacks city property -- saving them from destruction.

But a letter emailed Friday evening by Roberto Puga -- the trustee in charge of cleaning up and selling the site -- to city officials makes a case that saving the stacks would require a significant investment by the city.

Mayor John Cook has asked that the proposed resolution, which was written by the Save the Stacks group, be placed on the council's Nov. 27 agenda. The deadline to have a deal in place to avoid demolition is Dec. 4.

Cook said he "does not have a dog in the fight" but submitted the resolution to ensure that the group's case is heard by the council.

Reporter Chris Roberts

Neither Robert Ardovino, a Save the Stacks founder, nor Geoffrey Wright, the group's president, could be reached for comment Friday.

The resolution states: "The City of El Paso announces its intention to receive ownership in fee simple of the historically, architecturally and culturally significant chimneys and a small area of land to provide access to the site and parking spaces, for the purpose of creating a monument to the many workers who populated the plant through its productive life-cycle."

Save the Stacks paid for an engineering analysis, recently submitted to Puga, certifying that the tallest stack is sound, according to national and international design standards.

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"The design strength was found to be higher than demand for both the shell and liner along the length of the structures for the wind and seismic load combinations," the report concludes.

But Puga said there are significant hurdles to clear before he will sign off on an agreement to save those towering chimneys.

One of those is a requirement that the city assume liability for personal injury from contaminants at the site and partial or total collapse of the stacks.

The possibility of partial or total collapse, he wrote in the email, could make the property "unmarketable."

Puga, who works for Project Navigator, said company experts are examining the engineering reports to ensure that they were properly conducted and reached sound conclusions. He suggested that the city would be wise to do its own structural analysis.

And, after agreeing to delay demolition by more than a year, Puga said he does not plan to extend the deadline any further.

"I knew that was a drop-dead date," said Cook, who recently negotiated an additional month extension.

"Quite candidly, the Save the Stacks group is running out of time."

City Rep. Susie Byrd said she supports saving the stacks if the costs are reasonable.

"I do think (the stacks are) historic in that (they) tell the story of the economy of our past," Byrd said. "It would be a memorial to the harm it caused, also."

She does not believe a separate study is necessary as long as the current engineering reports are found to be scientifically sound. "We have people on our staff who can review what's been provided," Byrd said.

In the Friday email, Puga outlined why he believes the costs may be significant.

The resolution calls for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to use its "supervisory control" to remove the deadline and dedicate trust resources for repair work.

However, Puga said the TCEQ has no such control over the $52 million provided for cleanup by Asarco in a court settlement. And, further, he said spending the money on anything but remediation violates the court-ordered "Trust Agreement."

"The Trust Agreement does not allow the Trust money to be spent on rehabilitating the structural integrity of the stacks or the cost of ongoing maintenance as demanded by the Save the Stacks group," Puga said in the email.

In an interview earlier Friday, he said that if the stacks are not destroyed, the slightly more than $1 million it will cost for demolition would be put to other remediation tasks or set aside in a fund to deal with unforeseen remediation problems, as required by the agreement.

Puga also said in the email that his trust duties include taking any appropriate action "to maximize the sale price of the property to help pay for the remediation and cleanup costs."

The trust, he wrote, has retained a national brokerage firm that contacted "several parties" that successfully developed other remediated industrial sites and are interested in the Asarco land in El Paso. The firm's consultants, he wrote, say those parties are not interested in purchasing the site if the smokestacks remain.

If the city wants to purchase the smokestacks, Puga wrote, it will have to pay a price "at least equal to what the Trustee could have received from other interested parties who were willing to purchase the Property without the stacks."

The letter also notes that the city stands to lose an estimated $5 million to $5.5 million in tax revenues if it purchases the land.

The Save the Stacks resolution contends that the effort to avoid demolition was discouraged by the trust's $14 million estimate for repair, maintenance and operations over a 50-year period.

A Save the Stacks estimate posted on the trust's "Recasting the Smelter" Web site shows a cost of about $3.9 million for repair and environmental remediation over that time, but does not include the cost of operation, maintenance or insurance.

Puga said the trust's estimate -- in detail -- was posted on its website two years ago. If the stacks are structurally sound, Puga said, the 50-year cost would be somewhat lower.

"But most of the money in our cost estimate is for long-term operation and maintenance," he said.

And in the email, he said it will not be clear who is right until the project is completed. "Thus," he wrote, "the City should plan for the costs the Trust's experts have outlined."

The letter also details the trust's efforts to preserve "the historical significance" of the site. "To suggest that the Trustee has not taken steps to preserve the cultural and historical importance of the Site is simply inaccurate."

Puga said he granted permission to Save the Stacks for a Wednesday press conference on Asarco property. He said Project Navigator does not plan to attend.